


Second Star To the Right and Straight On 'Til Morning

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Aging, Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hope, Loss, Meddling, Mind Meld, Sacrifice, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Character study of Spock!Prime written after watching the 2009 Reboot movie</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Star To the Right and Straight On 'Til Morning

A part of Spock is tempted to see this universe as fundamentally broken, a lonely cul-de-sac of what never should have been. He watches the sky burn where Vulcan once hung, and he raises his voice in anguish until his throat is raw. This luxury he can afford; who is present to witness his grief? And then he trudges for hours through snow and ice and indigenous life forms that want to eat him, the negative space his home world had occupied washing the drifts over in red and green when he blinks.

James T. Kirk comes into his life again as always, at a dead run with certain death on his heels. And this, too, is familiar, to stand at the last between Jim and the unwavering assurance of his friend’s mortality—that second before Spock acts when he fears he is too late, the spike of adrenaline when his rescue succeeds. 

“Spock?” Jim says as if he cannot reconcile the old man before him and the man with whom he serves, as if he can see nothing of the one in the other. Spock has grown enough that he can take the sharp surprise of hurt that thought brings, worry it like a bruise, and then let it go. Spock hasn’t thought of himself as old in a very long time, but seeing Jim now—so beautifully and unbearably young—he cannot help but do so. Another part of Spock, the part he holds closest to his heart, begins to unthaw.

“You are not the captain of the _Enterprise_?” 

Jim shakes his head. “You’re the captain.” A thread of resentment runs through his words—and Spock had forgotten the nuances of that voice. It’s been so long since he last heard Jim speak. Jim looks at the ground, his hands curled into loose fists at his side, and Spock is startled to realize that Jim does not know his version of Spock at all, that if anything, their relationship is one of adversary. The hurt blooms again, and Spock cannot so readily will it away.

What Spock does next is selfish of him. He knows that. James T. Kirk is important to Star Fleet, to intergalactic history, to the continued survival of the Federation. But he need not accomplish that as the captain of a particular starship or as a member of a particular crew. The timeline in this universe has diverged so wildly from the one Spock remembers, who is he to say how Jim can best serve the future? 

What Spock does believe, with the same deep abiding faith he has in the Prime Directive, in the IDIC, in the laws that govern scientific processes, is that his life—the life of any Spock—is incomplete without the friendship of this man. And so he stretches forth his hand and he places his fingers on that young face and he opens both their minds.

Jim does not yet realize, except perhaps on a very superficial level, the intimate connection of the mind meld. He relives with Spock the events of the last few weeks, sharing knowledge and emotion of that which he has not himself experienced. But no event is isolated; no emotion exists in a vacuum. All that Spock is and has done colors what he shares with Jim. For weeks, perhaps even years after, Spock thinks Jim will find himself unwrapping this moment, unwinding the many layers that Spock’s memories contain. The link runs both ways, of course, and Spock revels in this brief glimpse into Jim’s mind—the familiar determination and loyalty and sense of duty, the more unfamiliar restlessness and anger. This man is not quite the James T. Kirk that Spock once knew, but in all the ways that matter he is the same.

“I am emotionally compromised,” Spock says and hopes this version of himself can forgive the twisting of the knife. Spock is not infallible; he has been wrong on many occasions. He has failed in his duty. He does not believe he is a god to tamper with the lives of those around him, but he cannot resist this one indulgence, this one manipulation. He hopes that one day, when this universe’s Spock comprehends what he has wrought, that man will be grateful for the friendship Spock has forged.

Spock trudges through the ice again, this time shoulder to shoulder with Jim, and Jim’s grin when Spock makes a joke is more blinding than sunlight on the ice cliffs.

When Nero has been defeated and the beginnings of order restored to the galaxy, Spock stands on a high balcony and watches Jim take command of the _Enterprise_. Scotty and Bones, Pavel and Hikaru, Nyota and Christine—he can pick them each out of the crowd, even from many feet away and with only the backs of their heads to distinguish them. “How many people ever know even one person willing to sacrifice everything for them?” Spock thinks. “And I have known a whole shipful of them.” The men and women gathered here today, they will never know _him_ , not as he is now, not with years of shared history that Spock cannot hope or even wish to recreate. And for that, Spock’s heart is heavy.

But they will know another Spock, this Spock who is so different from himself at that age despite all the similarities. What eddy in the pool, which ripple in time has changed him? He is not the same man that Spock was so long ago in his youth. He is not so rigid, so unwilling to accept the human hand offered in friendship and in love. Already, he does not hide behind one side of himself because he is afraid to face the other. He has taken with both hands what Spock denied himself for so long, and he is the better man for it. Spock looks at the delicate curve of Nyota’s neck, Christine’s hair braided into an intricate bun, the sharp line of Jim’s jaw, and he aches for what might have been and might still be.

Spock thinks of the long centuries of his life, of watching the people he loves grow old and die or worse yet, disappear into the blackness of space. He grips the edges of the railing as Jim accepts his commission, and despite all that he has lost, Spock cannot help but be grateful that when he draws his last breath, he will be the first among those he holds so dear.


End file.
